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All the Single Ladies

The noxious “legitimate rape” comment by Todd Akin, Missouri congressman and Senate candidate, has me once again pondering a simple question: Why do any women vote Republican?

The Republican establishment rushed in to pressure Akin to drop out of the race — something that he refused to do — in part because they want to win the seat, win control of the Senate and win Missouri for Romney. A SurveyUSA poll earlier this month — before “legitimate rape” — found Romney and Obama in a statistical tie in the state.

As a legislator, Mr. Akin has a record on abortion that is largely indistinguishable from those of most of his Republican House colleagues, who have viewed restricting abortion rights as one of their top priorities.

In fact, as this story reverberated through the public discourse, the Republican National Committee’s platform committee passed what one committee member told the Washington Times “appears to be the most conservative platform in modern history.” Among other things, it calls for a “human life amendment” with no exemption for rape or incest and praises “informed consent” laws.

Republicans are worried about the political fallout from Akin’s comment, though.

I’ve seen all of the things that you’ve seen, people telling him he should go. He needs to get out for the good of the party, for the good of the country, for the good of the presidential campaign, and we gotta defeat Obama. I agree with that, by the way. I think there are a lot of things here larger than single individuals.

Sandra Fluke introduced President Obama at a campaign event in Denver on Wednesday.

Single women are one of the country’s fastest-growing demographic groups — there are 1.8 million more now than just two years ago. They make up a quarter of the voting-age population nationally, and even more in several swing states, including Nevada. And though they lean Democratic — in a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, single women favored Mr. Obama over his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, by 29 points — they are also fickle about casting their ballots, preoccupied with making ends meet and alienated from a political system they say is increasingly deaf to their concerns.

On the one hand, the Republican establishment wants to battle the perception that the party is waging a war on women — which it is — by claiming that women’s economic interests are separate and distinct from their health interests. But that’s a false argument for many women because the two, particularly when it comes to reproductive control, are inextricably intertwined. Children dramatically affect one’s financial bottom line.

Self-sufficiency is tied up in self-determination. Family planning is essential to career planning. This is particularly true for single women.

On the other hand, there are those on the fringe of the party who are less beholden to the establishment and constrained by convention. They air the party’s frustration with these single women voters and don’t try to disguise their disdain.

Ronald Reagan managed to win two landslides without winning the women’s vote, but it is as you say, it’s striking, it’s not the women’s vote generically, it is the single women’s vote. And that’s because single women look to the government to be their husbands and give them, you know, prenatal care, and preschool care, and kindergarten care, and school lunches.

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson — who has made a number of appearances on Fox News, founded a Tea Party group in California and is also the founder of a group called BOND (Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny) — recently gave a speech (I hope it wasn’t a sermon), in which he said:

One of the primary reasons that it is over for America is because women are taking over, women are taking over, they’re in high so-called powerful position, they’re now running companies, they’re making decisions.

He then pointed out that he was not referring to all women:

The are some, a few out there that are logical women and can make sound decisions, but most cannot.

He prattled on nonsensically for a while, adding that “women cannot handle power, it’s not in them to handle power in the right way” and “women have been degraded, women are now degraded, they have no shame.”

I’m getting upset just transcribing this, so let me just get to the meat of it. Here’s the part of his speech I wanted you to see:

I think that one of the greatest mistakes that America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote. We should’ve never turned it over to women.

Why? Because “they’re voting in people who are evil.”

Now, on BOND’s website, both Sean Hannity and Dennis Prager, another conservative radio host, are listed as members of BOND’s advisory board. The Web site attributes the following endorsement to Hannity:

BOND has played an instrumental role in helping young men and women build lives which will help inspire the next generation. BOND continues to fight the good fight standing for the values of God, family, and country, and are deserving of our support.

And it attributes an endorsement to Prager that reads in part:

Whatever the issue, Jesse seeks truth and speaks with courage. Even on the few matters that I may not entirely agree with Jesse, he forces me to think a second and third time. He is so morally grounded and fearless that when we differ, my first reaction is to ask myself, ‘Where did I go wrong?’

This brings me back to my original question: why do women vote Republican? Even if you are personally pro-life you don’t have to be universally anti-choice. This is the party that attacks reproductive rights and limits women’s health options — which has the effect of limiting women’s economic liberty — and whose proxies on the radio and TV openly show disdain for women, especially those not hitched to a man.

Even if you’re married now, you weren’t always. You too were once a single lady.

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Weekly pieces by the Op-Ed columnists Charles Blow and Ross Douthat, as well as regular posts from contributing writers like Thomas B. Edsall and Timothy Egan. This is also the place for opinionated political thinkers from all over the United States to make their arguments about everything connected to the 2012 election. Yes, everything: the candidates, the states, the caucuses, the issues, the rules, the controversies, the primaries, the ads, the electorate, the present, the past and even the future.